Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him • Hacker News Board

Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

#551

Post by doubleunplussed » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 2:00 PM UTC

drewbug01 wrote: post #523

doubleunplussed wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it's worth, since anyone can predict what Matthew Garrett's opinion on this was going to be, it is in the Bayesian sense very weak evidence for anything.

This is a perfect example of an ad hominem attack which adds little to the discourse: https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/ad-hominem

The comment I was replying to was also using the fact that mjg is a specific person who knew Stallman as a reason they are credible. When the thing being discussed is how reliable someone is at conveying private information they have, rather than them making some argument devoid of experience, ad hom is not a fallacy.

Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

#552

Post by zaroth » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 2:07 PM UTC

parasubvert wrote: post #529

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing fair about it.

On the contrary. She's being quite fair.

Keep in mind that the premise of the thread (the picture of the name tag on the door) is actually a setup. Someone graffitis on Stallman’s door, and that mob justice character assassination spews forth from it.

Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

#553

Post by lawnchair_larry » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 2:19 PM UTC

parasubvert wrote: post #529

lawnchair_larry wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is nothing fair about it.

On the contrary. She's being quite fair.

Not in the least.

Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

#554

Post by danso » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 2:44 PM UTC

steveeq1 wrote: post #486

danso wrote: post #380

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I can just as easily argue that rap music as "harmful" and what they said were "terrible" things, and yet there is no public outrage over that. Are you serious? "Sistah Souljah moment" was the epitome of "cancel culture" in the Clinton years. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2011/jun/13/bill-clinton-s... https://www.nytimes.com/1992/06/17/us/the-1992-campaign-raci...

That's an exception. Rap music is very prevalent in today's society, and almost all of the subject matter deals with rape, killing, and selling drugs. You basically had to go back to the '90s to find an example.

I did not have to go back to the 90s to find just this example; I picked it because it was a critique by a sitting U.S. president, something that is quite rare and notable in any era.

Critiques of rap music have been a not uncommon phenomenon in the years since:

John McWhorter in 2003: https://www.city-journal.org/html/how-hip-hop-holds-blacks-b...

USA Today; "It's 2014, so why are Eminem's violent lyrics still OK?" https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/music/2014/11/25/eminem-...

Trump attacking Jay-Z on the campaign trail in 2016: https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/29/politics/trump-jay-z-hillary-...

Eminem being called out in 2018 for using homophobic slurs: https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/pride/8473186/eminem...

Wynton Marsalis in 2018: https://www.thedailybeast.com/the-conservative-war-on-hip-ho...

It's ironic (or actually, fitting) that you claim "I had to go back to the 90s" to find an example, because your perception of rap music seems to be stuck in the 90s, back when it faced peak critique and backlash. That we see less such critique today does not indicate that rap music has gotten a pass, but rather, that rap music has softened since what you perceived it to be in the 90s.

The most recent Billboard listing is paywalled, so I'll link to the 2018 year-end here: https://www.billboard.com/charts/year-end/hot-rap-songs:

https://www.billboard.com/charts/year-end/2018/hot-rap-songs

The top 5 songs are:

1. "God's Plan" by Drake

2. "I Like It" by Cardi B and others

3. "In My Feelings" by Drake

4. "Psycho" by Post Malone

5. "Nice For What" by Drake

I don't know all of the top rap songs in 2018, but I'm pretty comfortable asserting that the majority (nevermind "almost all") do not deal with "rape, killing, and selling drugs".

I linked above to this Eminem story, but it's worth re-mentioning here: Eminem's peak work had extremely controversial lyrics; today, he's ripped for being lukewarm and for using the f-----t word, which was definitely not as verboten as back in the 90s and early 2000s: https://www.billboard.com/articles/news/pride/8473186/eminem...

Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

#555

Post by prirun » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 2:45 PM UTC

JaimeThompson wrote: post #468

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I have the wrong opinion on the matter, will you assassinate my career for it regardless of the rationality of any argument I might make?

How do you reach that conclusion from what I posted? If punishing people for the wrong ideas is wrong is RMS wrong for saying those who release closed source software are deserving of punishment?

My guess is he means punished in the marketplace, ie, not buying proprietary software - not punish as in throw them in jail for buying/selling proprietary software.

It's a perfect example of where our society seems to be heading. Taking words and sentences out of their context and publishing the fragments over and over leads to incomplete understanding and misinterpretation.

To me, this is similar to the recent cases where some public figure said the N word 10 years ago, and so their present company fired them. Remember the phrase from childhood "Stick and stone may break my bones but words can never harm me." That's the principle of free speech. We sure don't have that anymore.

If you are a media person and use the N word in your position, and it's against your employer's policy to do that, fine - you're fired. But if you personally are a racist or hate gays or whatever, that should be your choice, and if you say the N word to your neighbor and they record it, your employer should not be able to fire you.

We have become way too sensitive IMO, and the fact that news is on 24/7 (they have to fill that time with something!) and is more about evoking feelings, spouting opinions and prophecies, and sensationalism than it is about facts, is a big part of the problem.

Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

#556

Post by jamesrcole » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 3:29 PM UTC

widowlark wrote: post #510

jamesrcole wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Social progress involves making-acceptable things that were previously offensive and outrageous to the majority. Things that were considered harmful to society. Things like equal rights for women, minorities, different sexualities. For progress to be possible, people must be able to say offensive things that others find unpleasant. You might say, but it’s not those kinds of “harmful” views we want to stop, only the g…

If it was the government censoring you from saying those "harmful" things I would agree with you. Who gets to decide is society, and it's responding loud and clear to this issue.

A view being the (supposedly) dominant one doesn’t therefore make it the correct or better one, as history clearly shows.

Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

#557

Post by mjg59 » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 4:04 PM UTC

pedanticlawyer wrote: post #547

mjg59 wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the Eben Moglen who is suing another free software organisation for trademark infringement, threatened to sue them for copyright infringement under a ludicrous misreading of the relevant license, threatened to ruin the life of an FSF board member, and who was fired by the FSF for briefing against the FSF's interests while being paid by Oracle.

> suing another free software organisation for trademark infringement Trademarks have to be enforced or you lose them. > threatened to ruin the life of an FSF board member Can you please backup this claim? I've found nothing to validate it. > and who was fired by the FSF for briefing against the FSF's interests According to every source I've found he resigned himself and voluntarily stepped down and left "on good ter…

> Trademarks have to be enforced or you lose them.

His trademark is on "Software freedom law center", and he's suing the Software Freedom Conservancy. He doesn't hold a trademark on "Software Freedom".

> Can you please backup this claim? I've found nothing to validate it.

I was there when it was reported and had confirmation from a witness.

> According to every source I've found he resigned himself and voluntarily stepped down and left "on good terms" to take care of SFLC which he had recently founded.

> It might be political jargon, but there is no way to prove he was fired.

I was on the board when he was fired.

> AFAIK Moglen never worked or took money from Oracle

Why would you be in a position to know?

Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

#558

Post by ng12 » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 4:18 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #539

ng12 wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point is your work no longer your own? FSF wouldn't exist without Stallman's vision and subsequent decades of tireless effort. Who gets to decide that Stallman no longer deserves stewardship over his own life's work because of a poster and some tired anecdote about plants?

At the end of the day, the FSF board had to decide what they wanted to do, either a) let RMS continue to do his usual thing without repercussions and become a less-relevant organization that people don't take seriously, or b) clean house and maintain some level of trust. Presumably they also considered a c) let RMS continue to do his thing and hope that there's no fallout. But I guess they considered (c) wasn't reali…

What makes it bad faith? Read through this thread. There's a lot of hearsay and misrepresentation and obviously some people just plain uncomfortable with RMS's persona regardless of what he did or didn't say.

And that's why I think this argument:

> a) let RMS continue to do his usual thing without repercussions and become a less-relevant organization that people don't take seriously

doesn't hold any water. First of all, as a lay person, I don't take the FSF seriously anymore because of this move. How can an organization defend our liberties when it's not willing to stand up to a witch-hunt targeting it's founding member? Second and more importantly, I think the people who do matter don't care: they have the reference point to know that this culture shift is fleeting and that, more importantly, FSF wouldn't even exist without someone who stubbornly, aggressively defends digital civil liberties. You can't _have_ the FSF without a Stallman behind it, and my bet would be this is the start of the FSF's slow fade into obscurity.

Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

#559

Post by api » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 4:45 PM UTC

input_sh wrote: post #306

strenholme wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for the link. My impression is that RMS mainly had some opinions which were leftover from the “free love” movement of the 1960s and 1970s which were not particularly shocking or out of line back then, but are considered job-losing toxic opinions here in 2019. For the record, as someone who saw that whole movement first hand, I disagree with the whole “free love” movement and think sex should only be done in…

> [P]rostitution, adultery, necrophilia, bestiality, possession of child pornography, and even incest and pedophilia ... should be legal as long as no one is coerced. They are illegal only because of prejudice and narrowmindedness. June 28th 2003: http://stallman.org/archives/2003-may-aug.html > I am skeptical of the claim that voluntarily pedophilia harms children. The arguments that it causes harm seem to be based…

Those views are pretty far outside the Overton Window even for the free love movement.

Re: Richard Stallman Has Been Vilified by Those Who Don’t Know Him

#560

Post by dang » Wed, Oct 02, 2019, 7:08 PM UTC

lostjohnny wrote: post #543

dang wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've banned this account for using HN primarily for political and ideological battle. That is against the site guidelines and destroys the curiosity that this site exists for, regardless of what you're fighting for or against. Please don't create accounts to break HN's guidelines with. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> We've banned this account for using HN primarily for political and ideological battle WHAT? FSF means Free Software Foundation, Free as in Free speech, IT IS POLITICAL! What the heck are you talking about?

I'm talking about your account history. It's against the site guidelines to use HN primarily for posting in political and ideological arguments. Would you please re-read them and not create accounts to break them with?

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html